Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

DENVER—A proposal to eliminate the death penalty in Colorado has cleared another hurdle.

The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee backed the measure (House Bill 1274) Wednesday at the urging of families of murder victims. The bill now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee for another vote.

The measure passed the House by a single vote last week and has drawn the attention of national anti-death penalty activists, including the father of an Oklahoma City bombing victim, who testified against it Wednesday.

The bill would take the money now being used to prosecute death penalty cases, about $1 million a year, and use it to investigate cold cases instead.

Opponents, including most of the state's district attorneys, say families are being given false hope that their crimes will be solved.